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Friends and Followers, in a matter of days I will be moving this blog to a new site, where I can offer upgraded features and content. I am working to do this as smoothly as possible, and I believe that if you are a current subscriber to melaniealexander.wordpress.com, you will be migrated to my new site and your subscription will still be active. I will admit I’m not the most tech savvy person out there though, so bear with me! And if you get lost along the way, please visit and subscribe to my NEW site.

My new site address is lostandfounddecor.com. It is live now, but will continue to undergo some changes in the next few days. I hope to see you all there!

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February is fast approaching and that means Valentine’s Day is just around the corner! February also is when I celebrate the 2nd anniversary of the start of my business and 1st anniversary of the start of this blog.

So in honor of those 3 things, I’m going to host my first giveaway! Now please be patient with me, I’m still learning the ropes here! The giveaway is for one of my vintage postcard banners, Valentine’s themed.

I try to make 8-10 of these for each holiday to sell in my space, and I can’t keep them in stock. I’ll hold back one though for one of you!

Here’s how to enter:

1. Check out any of my posts from this past year, and then leave a comment on thispost telling me what you thought.

2. For one additional entry you can check out my Facebook page, and leave me an additional comment saying you did so. I would love for you to “like” my page, but that’s not required for entry.

A winner will be chosen from the comments at random, and the giveaway will end Wednesday, January 29th at 10:00 pm CST. Winner will be announced on Friday the 31st.

This giveaway is limited to residents of the U.S. and Canada.

Good luck!

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I am at battle with the Mountain Cedar trees of Central Texas, at least that is what the news tells me. This past week has been one long, continuous sneeze, and I have heard that it’s a result of strong winds blowing the cedar pollen into our Dallas area. Yuck. I’m tired of it.

Despite feeling pretty crummy, I was able to finish up a furniture project and make it out to a few estate sales. My booth space up at ACM was in desperate need of a fresh look, so it was good to find some new inventory.

The cane-top table and chair set was quite a project, but came out nicely. The table and chairs each got a coat of Maison Blanche Sugar Cane and were antiqued with dark wax. I recovered the seats in natural linen and left the top of the table and back of each chair stained to give it some contrast.

Here are their “before’s”

They weren’t a set but fit together so well. I was ecstatic to find the chairs at an estate sale, anything cane is hard to come by in this area.

Speaking of cane, I also found an adorable child-sized cane rocking chair and small cane-top table at a local flea market. You can see them peeking out from under the table on the bottom left of the photo.

It’s quite a collection of cane! I love it though.

I also found an awesome church pew. It anchors another section in my booth that is “wedding” themed.

I really wish I could keep it, but just don’t have the room in my house. Underneath the pew is an awesome loooong crate that came out of an estate sale attic. It would make an amazing planter.

The green drawer, milk bottles, and cotton were also weekend finds, as well as someone’s old Sunday School Bible. They made a great display together.

I am a sucker for vintage artwork and found quite a bit of that also. These three tiny house prints are my favorites.

And with February right around the corner, I threw in a few vintage Valentine’s postcard banners for good measure.

That Mountain Cedar took most of my energy, but I had just enough left to freshen up the space a bit.

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The new year is almost here, it’s always fun to see what were the highlights of the year that’s ending. I started this blog in February, and here is a quick peek at the top 5 posts from then until now.

These “His” and “Her” antique dressers were such an awesome find. I practiced my refinishing skills for the first time on each of their tops. I was so excited that they sold as a pair, since they were bought and re-done together.

Oh my goodness, this project basically took up my entire summer. Working on this French settee was my first time attempting to reupholster anything and so was a major labor of love. I met the lady who purchased it, and she was buying it for her daughter’s French-themed nursery. It’s always fun to know where a piece is heading.

This is probably my favorite piece of the year. I tried out a new MMS milk paint color and it was purchased by a local friend for her entryway. She bought it as a birthday present for herself. I think it went from 70’s outdated honey stain to modern glam. It also has been popular on Pinterest.

I am not surprised that all of these posts are about furniture makeovers! They continue to be the bread and butter of my business. I love finding and writing about my unique small treasures, but my real passion is the furniture.

Thank you for all of your support in 2013 and for making these posts so popular!

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We are in between cold spells here in N. Texas. Two weekends ago we were iced in for 4 days, but since then the temperature has been steadily rising to the peak today of a pleasant 70 degrees. The cold and rain is supposed to return this weekend though, so I’ve been trying to squeeze in as much outdoor time as possible over the past few days.

A few weeks ago I signed up for another race, the Cowtown Marathon in Ft. Worth.

It’s in late February, and I’m only running the half marathon (only 13.1 miles compared to 26.2). I took some time “off” after running my first full marathon in October, but I was ready to have a challenge again. So my training for this race is a little more intense than what I have done before. I’m doing really crazy things like running sprints and running up hills over and over again . . . I know, it sounds like torture. But, my goal is to shave off about 12 minutes from my fastest finish time, and “they” say this is how to do that.

So on this gorgeous day today, I had some sprint running I was supposed to do. I didn’t get a chance to go first thing in the morning, but my husband got home early at around 3:30 and gave me the rest of the afternoon off. I had the choice to go do my sprint running, or start working on a new piece of furniture. The antique chest and new bag of milk paint was just too tempting . . . so I went with the painting. Great for my business, not so great for my training!

I am trying out a new MMS milk paint color–Dried Lavender.

It’s kind of a light, smoky purple. I’m not generally a purple girl, but this piece seemed to call for something very feminine.

I was able to finish sanding down the top of this great antique chest of drawers and paint two coats on the base. Here’s just a little preview. It’s starting to look fantastic.

I have one more day of great weather tomorrow . . . which will I choose? I have more running I’m supposed to do, but its so hard to leave a piece half-finished!

I really could use a few more hours in the day.

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What is your Black Friday tradition? Are you one of those people who camp out in line in the wee hours of the morning to score the best deal? Or do you just watch the news footage of those people from the couch in your jammies? Well, I spent my Black Friday at one of my favorite places, First Monday Canton Trade Days.

The weather was beautiful, and in my opinion there is no better way to walk off those extra holiday calories than some good junkin’.

I was expecting larger than usual crowds, but it was surprisingly calm at the south’s biggest flea market. A few of my favorite vendors were missing, but I still found lots of wonderful stuff. Here are a few highlights.

A petite vintage rubber stamp holder . . . I have seen these used as wine glass holders, jewelry displays, or just enjoyed as they are. They have a great, unique shape.

This stool is quite primitive, with lots of rust and chipping gray/blue paint. What I really thought was unique though was that once upon a time, someone made part of an old wooden spool into the seat.

I loved this antique paper cutter. I have seen lots of these around, but never a white one. It even has hints of turquoise paint showing through the white.

One of my favorite finds was a collection of six vintage cardstock punch-outs of Santa in various scenes. The image is printed on both sides, and on one side Santa’s suit is velvet. This one of Santa with a reindeer (Prancer, maybe?) was my favorite, so it’s staying with me.

If anyone recognizes them, I would love to know where they originally came from. A children’s book or magazine . . .? You’ll see Santa some more in an upcoming post.

After getting back home, I did head out with the fam a little later to take advantage of a traditional Black Friday sale at Lowe’s. We came home with a handful of poinsettias, a steal at only $.99 each.

I also grabbed two real fir wreaths. I usually don’t decorate with real greens because they are pricey and tempermental. But these little guys were only $5, so I grabbed two. One is hanging over my Craigslist shutters that sit on the landing in my stairway.

And did you spot our Elf? He’s perched up high to be able to see all the action.

I think my favorite Lowe’s deal though was two more industrial shelves for our garage. You all have seen glimpses into my garage before . . . it is a disaster. Now, all of my business stuff is contained in one shelf!

It helps me breath a little easier every time I head out there.

I hope you all found lots of wonderful deals yourselves and have enjoyed your holiday weekend!

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Here in Texas, we don’t have basements, or real attics for that matter. All we have is the garage, and mine isn’t a particularly large one. The garage is where just about all of my furniture finds and projects end up. I work real hard to get it cleared out and then enjoy one to two weeks of being able to park our van in there, only to load it back up again after the next great find. Sigh. I probably should accept that as long as we live here and I’m in this business, my garage is going to be more of a rotating furniture factory than a place to house our car.

Here is a peek at the projects hanging out in my garage right now.

I found this awesome, hand-built shelf/hutch in someone else’s garage . . . at an estate sale a few weeks back. It was super cheap and I grabbed it thinking it would make a great display for my shop. But I’ve developed a liking for it, and so I’m thinking we might keep it here. We have lots of big wall space in our house, so I may chop off the bottom pieces that make it a hutch (you can’t really see it in the pictures) and hang it on a wall space as display shelf. I’ve already thought of lots of neat things I could put on it . . . but for now, it’s just hanging out and serving as a drop spot for paint and tools.

I also have this great sideboard I found just a few days ago. I wrote in my last post about my excellent estate sale timing a few days ago . . . how I dropped in right when 90% off was announced! Well, this was one of my awesome finds. And it gets even better:

Here’s the top! A solid marble slab with hand-painted tiles, mirror, and trim work. It’s gorgeous and in excellent condition. And for you purists out there, don’t worry, I am not going to paint it.

It was part of a whole set that included a huge armoire and vanity . . . unfortunately, this was the only piece I could fit in my already stuffed van. It is truly ridiculous what I payed for it–maybe one of my best finds ever. It does need a tiny repair–one of the casters came off and needs to be fixed back in place. So, it also sits in my garage for now.

I found this really old oak chest of drawers on CL last week, and it’s already got a quick coat of milk paint on it. I’m super excited about the knobs I found for it, they are really sleek.

Two of the drawer bottoms need repair though, which is a job my hubby has to help with. So it’s also hanging out in my garage.

Besides business projects I have a few personal projects going on as well. I have been working on re-doing my little office area (more on that later . . .) and this great cane arm chair is part of my new scheme.

It’s waiting for a coat of MMS Artissimo and some new fabric on the seat.

Lastly, I’ve been doing some furniture switching in my boys’ rooms. The two big boys got bunk beds to replace their two twin beds, and the baby had one of the twin beds moved into his room. It won’t be too much longer before he is out of the crib and into a big kid bed, yikes.

I have a box spring left over from the big boys’ room (they can’t use their boxes on the bunks), but not another twin mattress yet. I don’t dare put the box spring down onto the bed without a mattress . . . it is low enough that my little one could climb onto it and I know I would find him jumping away, boring holes down into the box! So, it’s just kinda hanging out until I can find a good deal on a twin mattress to go on top.

Rarely are things settled for a long around here. I wish you all a productive week for all of your projects!